Contractor answering service, scripted for your trade
Forward your line after hours, on weekends, or when the office can't pick up.
Scripts written for your trade, not adapted from a call center: each agent starts from an emergency list, triage questions and vocabulary built for the calls your shop actually gets.
or call the demo line first: (973) 791-7808
One script does not fit four trades. A plumber's worst call is a burst supply line flooding a finished basement. An HVAC shop's is no heat on the first freezing night with a newborn in the house. An electrician's is a burning smell from the panel. A roofer's is water coming through the ceiling in the middle of a storm. Each of those needs a different first question, a different safety instruction, and a different definition of tonight versus Tuesday. So each trade on DispatchLine gets its own emergency list, its own triage questions in the order a dispatcher would ask them, and its own vocabulary, so the agent knows that a flapper is a toilet part and a condenser sits outside the house.
Pick your trade to see its emergency list, the questions the agent asks, a sample call, and the arithmetic on what a missed job costs: plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or roofing.
Roofing
Storm week fills your voicemail. DispatchLine answers, triages and books the inspection.
See the scriptElectrical
Sparks, outages and panel jobs. Answered, sorted and booked, day or night.
See the scriptHVAC
When the AC dies in July, the shop that answers first gets the job.
See the scriptPlumbing
Burst pipes don't wait for business hours. Neither does your phone anymore.
See the scriptWhat a contractor answering service has to do differently
A contractor answering service has to sort the call, not just take a message. A general service is built around the message: a name, a number and a reason for calling. A burst pipe, a buzzing panel and water through a bedroom ceiling each need something said in the first minute. An answering service for contractors has to do three things a general one does not.
- Work from the trade's own emergency list. Plumbing flags a burst pipe or a sewage backup; HVAC, no heat or no cooling with an infant, an elderly person or medical equipment in the home; electrical, sparks or a burning smell; roofing, water coming in now. Where it fits, the emergency gets one safety instruction before anyone asks for the address.
- Ask triage questions in the order a dispatcher would. Is the water slowing? Are the neighbors' lights on? Who is in the home? The answers decide whether the job is tonight or Tuesday, and what the tech brings.
- Book into arrival windows on a board. A trade customer is offered a window, such as 9 to 11 tomorrow, not an exact time. Only open windows are offered, and emergencies go to the emergency slot.
How DispatchLine handles each trade
Every account starts from a script built for its trade: an emergency list, triage questions and vocabulary. You edit the emergency keywords and triage questions in the portal without a ticket.
Plumbing: the shutoff before the address
The agent sorts a flooded basement from a slow drain in the first minute. On a burst pipe it walks the caller to the main shutoff first, then books the emergency window and alerts your on-call tech. A water heater call gets the heater's age and fuel type, so the plumber brings the right parts. The script and a sample 11 PM call are on the answering service for plumbers page.
HVAC: who is in the home
HVAC calls come in surges, in the first hot week and on the first freezing night. Out of the box the agent asks whether it is heating or cooling, whether the system is completely off or just not keeping up, and about any smell, noise or water around the unit. A caller who mentions a gas smell or a carbon monoxide alarm is told to leave the building before anything else, and an infant, an elderly person or someone on medical equipment in a home with no heat or no cooling makes the call an emergency. Who is home and the temperature inside are questions you can add in the portal. Replacement inquiries become leads for your comfort advisor. The questions in order are on the HVAC answering service page.
Electrical: whose side the outage is on
A dead outlet is routine; a buzzing panel is not. The agent tells the caller not to touch it, asks whether a breaker has tripped and whether it is the whole house or one room or circuit, and books the rest by urgency. Whether the neighbors are out too, so a street outage goes to the utility instead of your van, is a question you can add in the portal. Panel upgrades and EV chargers come in as leads, and the amperage your estimator needs is another question you can add. See the electrician answering service page.
Roofing: sorting the storm pile
Storm week puts four different jobs in one pile. The agent tells a homeowner with water coming in to stay off the roof and catch the drip, books the tarp or dry-in slot, and puts missing shingles, inspections and re-roof quotes into your inspection windows. It never estimates and never discusses insurance coverage. The storm-week script is on the roofing answering service page.
Other trades
The four trades above each have a page with the script and a sample call. Two more trades have a setup guide instead:
- AI receptionist for a garage door company covers why a car stuck behind the door is what makes a call urgent, the safety lines for a broken spring, why springs and new doors are not quoted over the phone, and how to plan for the first hard freeze of the season.
- AI receptionist for a landscaping business covers how to tell route work from project work on the phone, the property questions that make an estimate short, what callers hear on a rain day, and what to set up before the spring rush.
What every trade script has in common
- The life-safety rule. A caller who mentions gas, smoke, fire or a carbon monoxide alarm is told to leave and call 911 before anything else. It is fixed on every account.
- Your emergency action, chosen in advance: book the emergency slot and alert the on-call tech, live-transfer to a number you set, or take details and promise a callback within 15 minutes.
- Windows from your own board. Nothing is held in reserve, so an emergency gets the earliest open window. On a day you have marked closed, emergencies can still be booked between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m.
- Answers only from the business facts you wrote; anything else gets "I'll have the office confirm that." Asked whether it is a person, the agent says it is your company's automated assistant.
- A record of every call: transcript, two-line summary, and the recording when recording is on. You get an email for bookings and urgent calls. Confirmation texts are on by default, go only to callers who say yes on the call, and can be switched off. Team text alerts need each member's opt-in.
What it does not do
DispatchLine books onto its own appointments board. It does not write jobs into Jobber, Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan yet; the booking reaches you by email and CSV export, and someone enters it there. The agent also does not quote a price you did not write, diagnose the problem, take a card number or decide which truck is closest. Your dispatcher, or you, still sends the trucks.
Putting a trade script on your line
Setup is a self-serve wizard of about 15 minutes. You keep your number and forward it, and the line goes live only after you make a test call and hear the agent work. Start with after-hours forwarding, or with busy and no-answer forwarding so the office keeps first pick of every ring. How it works follows one call from ring to booking, and pricing sets out the plans and the free trial.
To hear a trade script first, call the live demo line at (973) 791-7808. It answers as a fictional plumbing company, so play a customer with a leak.
New field guides by email
Guides for home-service businesses on answering calls, call triage and after-hours coverage: the title, a short summary and a link for up to six of the newest guides on this site. At most one email every 30 days.